1. Copyscape: use Copyscape to search for copies of your web content. If you discover someone is using your work and passing it off as their own, dive into Copyscape’s list of resources and suggestions for what to do if you discover you’ve been plagiarized. Place a Copyscape banner on your website pages. This does not protect your work, but it does discourage would-be thieves.
2. Place a copyright notice at the end of each blog posting: “Copyright [year] [your name]. All Rights Reserved.” Look at the end of this posting, and you’ll see my copyright.
3. The folks at WordPress suggest using a more-detailed copyright notice on your blog, stating what uses you will and won’t allow. I’ve placed this copyright in my sidebar. If you do not want excerpts of your work used, you can modify the notice to remove that language. This article also includes some other great ideas for protecting your work and gives suggestions on what to do if your work has been stolen.
4. There are good suggestions in an article at Freelance Switch, including a novel use of Google Alerts: “… choose one or more phrases that are relatively unique to your work, place them in quotes and set up a Google Alert to notify you automatically when a match is found.”
5. Use watermarks on your images. Other suggestions can be found in this posting from Web Resources Depot.

While there are no guarantees that your work won’t be stolen, taking some, or all, of these steps should help. And should the worst occur, you can follow these steps to recover your website property.

Copyright 2010 Regina Fried. All Rights Reserved.

Photo: Kreg Steppe

• make it simple,
• keep it short.

Readers on the web tend to scan text. They don’t read every word. Faced with a long block of copy and unfamiliar terms, they stop short. Maybe they leave and go to another site.

To avoid that, follow these suggestions:

• Go easy on the jargon. Every industry has its own terminology and at times you have to use it. If your audience includes those unfamiliar with these terms, though, you risk losing those people. Use “plain” language whenever you can.

• Lose the modifiers — adjectives and adverbs have their place, but you weaken your copy by overusing them. Use strong nouns and verbs and you’ll make your point — effectively and efficiently;

• Axe those multi-syllabic words and long sentences. I’ve read that web content should be written at an 8th grade level. Keeping this suggestion in mind will help you write better copy;

• Don’t try to cram too much into one place. Focus on one idea per paragraph;

• Finally, another tip. Use bulleted lists. They make for easier reading.